Friday, January 8, 2016

J: I know! I was sure, but then we googled it, and all we saw were James Bond-themed shoes. Win!

M: Ah! Sorry. It's really spicy.

J: She's referring, of course, to her BOND-y Mary. [chuckles]

M: [laughs and shakes her head] I've got nothing! I think we should just stop blogging now. We can't top that.

J: Lucky for us, we don't have to! For, dear readers, this is but a PRE-post! Despite the fact that Meredith has already seen Spectre, she was nice enough to accompany me again this afternoon.

M: Anything for the blog. No, anything for BWAB.

J: Damn straight. But also, quickly, did you like it the first go-round?

M: [clears throat] I... I did. But! I went into it knowing that it would never be as good as Skyfall. Because, Skyfall, if not the greatest movie ever, is at least the greatest Bond movie ever.

J: [snorts] But good! Good. I'm glad you liked it. I'm looking forward to it. But not as much as I'm looking forward to getting a Bond-y Mary of my own... thanks, Pig!

M: Now it looks like you're calling me a pig.

J: Dammit! No! We're at the Pig! The Bourgeois Pig! It's a coffee shop! And a bar! And you're lovely!

M: [laughs] Thank you for clarifying. So... do you have any... uh... any thoughts going into the film? Anything you're hoping to see?

Dream big, silver trash bag dress, dream big...

J: That is a great question. I'm looking forward to the dresses that the Bond girl(s) wear, because I like pretty things, and speaking of pretty things, I'm also looking forward to watching Daniel Craig for over two hours. Maybe he'll take his shirt off. Maybe not. We'll just have to see.

M: There's also a decent bit of Q in this movie.

J: [gasps] I love Q!!! He plays so many weird twisty characters in other movies, but he's so cute and clever and British. Etc.

M: I think that spicy things make me cold.

J: It's also a cold drink. And we're sitting outside.

M: Right, but...

J: I think it's time to wrap up our pre-post!

M: Like a present! Ha! Pre, post, present, get it? [rim shot]

J: Oh my god!

***

J: Some hours and several days later, we're ready to talk about Spectre. Personally, I liked it a lot. It was very classic James Bond with not a lot of extra thinking.

M: I agree. And I feel like I had a lot of things to say about this movie that were remotely... I'm not going to say intelligent... but maybe insightful or interesting? Or at least related to the film?

"Running on, running on [martinis]."

J: Didn't we have a really great conversation on the car ride home, and we were all, 'omg, we should have recorded this!'?

M: I think we need to invest in like a GoPro, where could just film ourselves post-film. Like, immediately.

J: That's definitely turning into an issue right now. So really liked the opening scene in Mexico.

M: I really liked the opening scene in Mexico, too. I almost peed myself when I first saw it. It was just hokey enough to be James Bond.

J: I agree! The whole movie seemed very formulaic, but in a good way. Like you sort of knew a little bit what to expect, and that made it more entertaining to watch. I also liked the female lead. I thought she was sassy but also realistic.

M: Yes, exactly! I really liked Madeline Swan and she seemed much more true to the Bond women of the books. Also, in this film was the oldest Bond woman. What was her name?

J: She really did. I loved the cameo and her character and the whole "secret society" thing was very well done. Also Christoph Waltz!!!

M: Ah. That's what we talked about a lot. He was way too adorable! I want to just put his little villain-self in his pocket and take him home.

J: Haha yes! I think that made him even scarier as a villain. You weren't sure what he was going to do, whether it was going to be nice or not nice or really not nice. Also that whole scene with the brain torture?! That didn't really work for me.

M: Yeah. This is the first Bond movie I've scene with Blofeld as the villain.

J: I don't even know who that is.

Purr purr meow meow meow.

M: I just know that it's the basis for Dr. Evil and the villain in Inspector Gadget.

M2: It's cultural. It's mocked, it's referenced. And I feel like if you were a fan going in, you could pretty much always tell that's what Christoph Waltz was always going to be.

J: I knew that the scar was significant in some way, I just didn't know how. And the part about him being his brother...

M: I've only read the first five books, and I don't really remember there being a mention of James Bond being an orphan, necessarily. I know that's some part of the mythology, but I don't know if that comes strictly from the films. And Spectre itself, in the books, is SMERSH.

J: Well that sounds ridiculous.

M: It's some Russian acronym for 'death to spies' or something.

J: It still sounds like smerfs. Or smersh. Smush?

M: Fair enough. Maybe that's why they changed it.

J: I wouldn't blame them!

M: All in all, I'm very sad that this is the last Danny Craig film. He's easily my favorite Bond.

J: He was so good! I will say that as a current student studying potential brain injuries, I was really appalled at the number of concussions he obviously received in this film, if not realistically, then in theory.

M: In his interview on the Colbert show, I guess it's the Late Show now... in any case, he did mention that he tries to do as many stunts on his own as he can. He did say that he has been kicked in the face before.

J: Seriously, all of those scenes made me cringe. And there were a lot of them! Either way, it was a traditional and super entertaining Bond movie, with a very satisfying ending.

"Have you played Clash of Titans yet?"

M: It had enough throw-back to previous Bond films, but it still maintained the modern grittiness that makes Daniel Craig stand apart for me.

J: I would totally agree. He's such a funny Bond given the super suave, debonair history, but I think I like him much better for it. He's snarky but believable.

M: To me, he's so much closer to the Bond of the books. I think Connery is the only one that rivals him. Although... I have not seen a Timothy Dalton Bond... or a Lazenby.

J: I learned yesterday that Roger Moore did the most Bond movies of anyone in history. And I hear that's a shame.

We can explain...

A hundred years ago, when we were in high school, we bonded over our mutual love of Irish culture. With a little hard work and one traumatizing Student Senate experience, The Irish American Club was born!

Though the club accomplished nothing more than holding a St. Patrick's Day bake sale (which funded some seriously rad t-shirts), we're back again for another try. This time, it's different (we swear!).

We recently spent a year studying beginning Irish Gaelic at the Irish Cultural Center in Kansas City, Missouri. We also both own laptops and enough expendable income to find and view plenty of movies. Then there's the matter of all the time we've discovered we have since graduating from college...

Bottom line: Blog with a Brogue is a chance for us, and you, to delve a little deeper into one of the things we find most fascinating about Irish (or any) culture: the accent. In this blog, we're featuring accents from the Atlantic Archipelago, which includes Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England.

Sit back, grab a pint of your favorite beverage (if it's in a pint glass, it counts), and enjoy!